Prepare a 0.2M Sodium Acetate Solution. Weigh 27.2 gm of Sodium Acetate Trihydrate into a one liter volumetric flask. Add 800 mL of Deionized Water. Mix and dissolve. Bring the pH down to 4.0 with Glacial Acetic Acid. Add 70 mL of n-Propanol. Finally adjust the volume to one liter with Deionized Water and mix.

Prepare 0.25M solution of Sodium Phosphate, Dibasic, in Deionized Water. (Initial pH approx. 9.25) Bring the pH down to 8.4 with with the slow addition of a 0.25M solution of Potassium Phosphate, Monobasic, in water.

Prepare a 0.25M solution of Sodium Phosphate Dibasic (Na2HPO4) in Deionized Water. Adjust the pH with Potassium Phosphate Monobasic (KH2PO4)) (if the pH is low use 2N Sodium Hydroxide to bring it up to 9.1).

Use only Potassium Phosphate Dibasic, ( K2HPO4) because the Sodium Salt will precipitate in n-Propanol. Weigh 43.5 gm of K2HPO4. Mix and dissolve in approx. 900 mL of Deionized Water. Add 70 mL of n-Propanol and adjust the pH to 9.1 with KH2PO4. Bring the volume to one liter with water.

Slowly add 450 gm of Potassium Hydroxide pellets to a volumetric flask containing 500 mL of Deionized Water. This is done in a cool water bath. When all the pellets are dissolved and the temperature has come down to room temperature bring the volume to one liter with Deionized Water. Mix well.

670 gm of Potassium Hydroxide (Assay 88%) is added slowly with cooling and mixing into 400 mL of Deionized Water. When all the solid is dissolved and the solution is at room temperature bring the volume to one liter with water.

Prepare a saturated solution of Sodium Bicarbonate (60 gm/liter Deionized Water). pH should be 8.4. Raise the pH to 9.2 with Anhydrous Sodium Carbonate. Decant the clear supernatant solution and discard the solid at the bottom.

Dissolve 12.1 grams of TRIS (THAM) base in 900 mL of Deionized Water. Adjust the pH to 9.0 with the slow addition of concentrated HCl.

Solvents

Precautions

All solvents should be HPLC grade.

Some drugs are changed when exposed to an oxidizing agent.It is therefore important that Ethyl Acetate (which easily forms peroxides) be peroxide free. Check for peroxides by mixing 1 ml of a 50% (w/v) of Potassium Iodide in water with 9 mL of solvent. A brown color indicates release of Iodine by the oxidative effect of organic peroxides. A drop or two of 0.1 N HCl added to the tube increases the sensitivity of the test.

It is a good idea to screen each new lot # of solvents for contaminants by drying down a few mL of the solvent and following derivatization, if required, injecting it for GC-MS analysis. As an example, we have encountered a contaminant in Acetone which, when used to prepare the 40% wash for THC sample preparation, resulted in a 488 ion contamination at the retention time of THC-COOH. A different lot # of Acetone did not exhibit this contaminant.

Solvents or solvent mixes which call for the addition of 2% Triethylamine (TEA) are prepared in a glass bottle with a Teflon or Polypropylene lined screw capped top. 2 ml of TEA is added to 98 mL of the appropriate solvent and mixed well. Prepare fresh reagent bi-monthly.

BCD Custom Manufacturing

Biochemical Diagnostics, Inc., is an FDA licensed manufacturer established in 1981.

As a manufacturer of special chemistry test kits and reagents, liquid control urines, and solid phase extraction columns, reagents and hardware, our manufacturing capability is extensive. Our expertise includes formulating, freeze drying, liquid and dry filling. Our many years of manufacturing experience has taught us to produce products which are rugged, reliable, accurate and reproducible.

Being a manufacturer goes far beyond formulation, packaging and shipping. Our experience has taught us how to insure packaging compatibility to avoid contamination or alteration of packaging contents, and how to stabilize our products for maximum shelf life without compromising test results.

We are known in the field for our hands on approach to service and have been told that our sometimes overzealous approach to helping our customers distinguishes Biochemical Diagnostics from the multitude of manufacturers in the marketplace.

After you have reviewed the products listed on this website we hope that you will contact us for more information about our products and learn how we can become your source for your OEM or customized general reagents, reagent kits, solid phase extraction columns and liquid control urines.

BCD Support

This trouble-shooting guide has been prepared by the technical staff of Biochemical Diagnostics, Inc.

Based on our own experience and the comments of those customers who have responded to our surveys. Our customers have reported very few technical problems when using our complete reagent kits, however, nobody is perfect and occasional problems do occur. In order to minimize startup problems, we ask that you read this guide and the package insert before attempting to set up our tests. If additional information is needed, we encourage you to contact us or leave an e-mail message and we will contact you. Included in this guide are some quality control recommendations for those of you who find it necessary to prepare some of your own reagents. While we discourage this practice, since performance cannot be guaranteed, we have included this information since it is our goal to satisfy every customer. Although our reagents are thoroughly tested for composition purity and performance in our own laboratory, there may be slight variations in the composition of different lot numbers of a particular reagent. Whenever possible, we encourage you to use complete reagent kits in order to obtain optimum performance.

If possible, avoid using different lots of reagents or columns within a single run. When necessary, reagents of different lot numbers should be "pooled" and used as a homogeneous reagent. For best results, this rule should also be applied to reagents of the same lot number.

Troubleshooting Guides

BCD Drug Applications

PARTIAL LIST OF DRUGS AND NON-DRUG ANALYTES THAT CAN BE EXTRACTED USING DETECTABUSE® OR MULTI-PREP® COLUMNS DRUGS

The extraction methods listed below are suitable for GC/MS and LC/MS. For LC/MS it is best to substitute ammonia for TEA and either dry down the sample prior to taking it up in mobile phase, or, modify the elution solvent, (e.g. basic methanol or water methanol mixtures), to insure that it is compatible with the mobile phase.

Prevention of cross contamination and carryover has always been important but as methods become more sensitive this issue has come to the forefront of laboratory inspections and evaluations. Please visit the "SPE and Sample Preparation" product section see how our hardware design and methods are designed to help you overcome this problem.

The water wash following methanol column activation is optional and applies to columns activated but not used for more than 20 minutes such as might happen when used on a robotics platform Such delays may lead to methanol evaporation which can cause a loss in column efficiency.

Before setting up any of the following extraction procedures we suggest that you become familiar with our troubleshooting guides found in the BCD resources/ BCD support section.